Strom Thurmond's Mixed Record

Editor's Note: This article was published last December after Trent Lott declared that the United States would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had won the presidential election of 1948. The piece suggested that it was ironic that Thurmond was to become the icon of the segregationist movement because when he first came to power he was regarded as a moderate.

As of this moment, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott is fighting for his political
life. With a few sentences last Monday, Lott appeared to endorse Strom Thurmond's
1948 run for the presidency on the segregationist Dixiecrat ticket. Since that
time he has issued numerous apologies, and the Republican Party is in the midst
of a very public identity crisis. Meanwhile, reporters around the nation have
been busy educating the American public on one of the critical elections of
the twentieth. The Dixiecrat defection was an important turning point in the
political transformation of the South, serving as the cross-over point for many
white southern voters in their eventual move from the Democratic to the Republican
column. The election of 1948, therefore, marked the tentative beginnings of
the two-party South and the region's political transition from a Democratic
to a Republican stronghold.

Strom Thurmond has come to embody this political transformation, with his 1948
Dixiecrat candidacy, his support for Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, his
re-election as a Republican in 1966, and his key role in Richard Nixon's "Southern
Strategy" in 1968. However, if by virtue of these hallmarks Thurmond is
to be identified as the father of the South's political transformation, a closer
look at his role in the Dixiecrat movement dictates that perhaps we should recharacterize
him as something of a deadbeat dad.

Although present at the inception, Thurmond provided little subsequent support
for the infant organization. Thurmond's role in the Dixiecrat campaign of 1948
was, in the final analysis, both a blessing and a curse for the Dixiecrats.
A closer look at his troubled candidacy and Thurmond's ambiguous motives reveals
cleavages within the revolt, complicates our understand of postwar southern
politics and the painful process of change.

ROOTS OF THE DIXIECRAT REVOLT

The roots of the 1948 Dixiecrat revolt stretch back to the tumultuous New Deal
and war years, when Southern conservatives became increasingly uncomfortable
with the direction of economic policies that threatened to redefine the region's
economic, racial, and political relations. The revolt took definite shape in
February of 1948 after Harry Truman delivered his civil rights address to Congress.
Practically every white southern leader roundly denounced the civil rights legislation
proposed by the president; however, few were receptive to the idea of independent
political action that would threaten the Democratic Party's chances for success
in the presidential election in November. Greater still, few congressmen and
senators were willing to break with the party and threaten their seniority.

From February until the election in November, the states' rights revolt was
piloted by a small group of conservative Democratic state leaders from the Deep
South and primarily from Mississippi and Alabama, men who had long opposed the
New Deal and had been involved in the 1944 attempt to deny Franklin Roosevelt
his fourth nomination. By and large these men -- and they included Mississippi
Governor Fielding Wright, Mississippi Speaker of the House Walter Sillers, former
Alabama governor Frank Dixon, and Louisiana political boss Leander Perez --
represented the conservative agricultural and industrial forces in their respective
states. Such men were neither temperamentally suited nor philosophically given
to organizing a grassroots campaign. Although they liked to boast that the revolt
had emanated from the voters, it was in fact a top-heavy organization dedicated
to controlling existing political machinery and in grabbing existing political
power. They were less interested, at least initially, in creating a new political
party than they were in regaining control of the old. The Dixiecrats hoped to
convince the individual state Democratic Parties to withhold their electoral
college votes from President Truman, the nominee of the national Democratic
Party. They sought to deny Truman victory and throw the election into the House
of Representatives, where they could then barter and trade for a compromise
candidate. They would have demonstrated their power and would have recaptured
the South's preeminent position within the Democratic Party.

As the Dixiecrat's presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond proved both a blessing
and curse for the organization. Thurmond had leapfrogged to the front of the
states' rights revolt at the Southern Governors' Conference in mid-February
1948. This meeting came in the wake of Harry Truman's unprecented civil rights
address to the United States Congress. Not everyone -- especially the Mississippi
Dixiecrats -- was pleased with Thurmond's assumption of leadership. At the conference
of southern governors, Mississippi governor Fielding Wright advocated a hard
line against the president. Wright recommended that a "Southern Conference
for True Democrats" meet at Jackson, Mississippi, in March to draw up a
plan of action. Thurmond recommended a moderate approach, suggesting that the
governors meet with the national party forces to seek a compromise on the civil
rights issue. Thurmond's suggestion won the support of the governors, much to
the irritation of Wright and others. Of course, the administration did not compromise.
Although Thurmond stayed within the states' rights camp, Wright and many Alabama
and Mississippi Dixiecrats viewed him warily.

AN IMPULSIVE DECISION

Thurmond's official Dixiecrat candidacy was a last-minute decision by both
the Dixiecrats and Thurmond himself. He was in many ways, as his biographer
Nadine Cohodas has written, a candidate by default. Although Thurmond had become
one of the leaders of the movement in February, he remained uncertain during
the first half of the year about the wisdom of staging an independent campaign.
Indeed, it was unclear just what exactly was going to transpire at the states'
rights convention in Birmingham on July 17, 1948. Among themselves, the Dixiecrats
were undecided as to whether they were merely going to urge southern states
to deny Truman their electoral college votes or whether they were going to nominate
candidates themselves. A small group of states' rights supporters from Alabama
and Mississippi engineered the convention and decided unilaterally that the
group should nominate its own candidates -- in effect, create a third party
(although they denied that was what they were doing). Just who those candidates
would be, nobody knew.

When the convention recessed for lunch, the states' rights insiders still had
not settled on their man. Their first choice, Arkansas Governor Benjamin Laney,
proved fickle. Laney harbored strong doubts about attending the conference,
which was held only days after the national Democratic Party convention. On
his way home to Arkansas from the national Democratic Party convention in Philadelphia,
Laney told reporters in Cincinnati that neither he nor any of the Arkansas delegates
would go to Birmingham. By the time he reached St. Louis, he had changed both
his mind and his train and was on his way to Alabama. Laney arrived in Birmingham
the day before the Dixiecrat convention. He checked into his hotel and never
left his suite for the duration of the convention. During the convention's noon
recess he formally withdrew his name from consideration for the presidential
nomination. He felt the best hope for defeating the civil rights plank was through
the state Democratic organizations, not a third party.

Spurned by the Arkansas governor, states' rights leaders turned their attention
to Thurmond, who, like Laney, initially had not planned to attend. The South
Carolina governor had been detained on state business and did not even arrive
in Birmingham until the convention's morning activities were nearly completed.
While the conventioneers were enjoying lunch, states' rights leaders desperately
searched for a candidate. Many in the states' rights higher councils wanted
Fielding Wright for the top spot. Wright had discouraged this, saying, "I
do not feel that I am a man of sufficient political stature to accept such a
nomination." Strom Thurmond operated under no such personal misgivings.
Thurmond agreed to accept the states' rights mantle by the time the caucus reconvened
at 2:30 p.m. This spur-of-the-moment decision surprised even his closest advisors,
who did not accompany him to the convention. In an interview given more than
forty years later, Thurmond advisor and Charleston attorney Robert Figg stated
that had he gone with the South Carolina governor to Birmingham, he would have
advised Thurmond against accepting the nomination. At the time, some in the
Palmetto State saw Thurmond's candidacy as a public relations ploy designed
to improve his chances in the 1950 U.S. Senate Democratic party primary. In
later years, Thurmond denied this accusation.

STROM THURMOND: MODERATE ON RACE

Thurmond proved a wise choice as a presidential candidate. In a movement that
was short on leaders of solid reputation, he brought a certain seriousness and
legitimacy to the cause. But in terms of his political history, Thurmond was
in many ways an odd fit with the other Dixiecrats. Although his subsequent political
career has made him into the poster boy for the defense of white supremacy,
Thurmond's gubernatorial politics and policies characterize him as a moderate.
His 1946 gubernatorial campaign had been remarkably free of racist appeals.
Compared to other southern governors elected during that politically schizophrenic
year, Thurmond stood somewhere in the middle, halfway between Alabama populist
James Folsom and Georgia racist Eugene Talmadge As governor he helped streamline
government agencies, supported a minimum wage and maximum hour law, consistently
urged abolition of the state's poll tax, advocated legislation to provide secret
ballots in the general election, and championed the creation of a merit system
for state government employment. In 1947, when a brutal lynching in upstate
South Carolina shocked the nation, Thurmond quickly mobilized the state constabulary
to apprehend the lynchers. Like other moderates in the 1940s and 1950s, Thurmond
focused on modernization, undertaking an intense campaign to promote industrial
development and economic growth in the state. Thurmond heartily believed that
the South's racial dilemma would be solved through economic growth and development,
not through federal interference.

Thurmond's assumption of the Dixiecrat mantle shocked South Carolina's small
but active liberal community, which had great hopes when Thurmond was elected
in 1946. In a letter to Thurmond, one African-American activist claimed he would
have voted for Thurmond in the 1946 primary "were I not disfranchised"
because "not once did you raise the race issue for political purposes."
As late as October 1947, Thurmond remained a loyal Truman man. Thus, South Carolina
liberals were shocked and disappointed when Thurmond moved to the front of the
states' rights revolt in February 1948. State NAACP leader James Hinton criticized
Thurmond's involvement as "a keen disappointment to the negroes of South
Carolina." Up to that point, Hinton claimed, blacks felt that in Thurmond,
"they had a Chief Executive, free from White Supremacy attitudes and expressions,
and one who would hasten the day, when Negroes in South Carolina would enjoy
'EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY.'" South Carolina's tiny but active liberal community
had come to expect better from its governor.

But even if his gubernatorial policies distinguished him from his fellow Dixiecrats,
like his more conservative compatriots, Thurmond opposed all proposed federal
civil rights legislation, which he considered unwarranted intervention and interference
into the rights of states. In many ways, the South Carolinian personified the
gendered components of the region's conservative states' rights political culture,
making him particularly well suited to serve as point man in the states' rights
crusade.

THE IMPORTANCE OF VIRILITY

In 1948, Thurmond effectively combined a fighting spirit and his status as
a World War II veteran with a well-known penchant for clean living, vigorous
physical exercise and pretty women into a representation of himself as the vehicle
by which the south might address its political emasculation. In the gendered
discourse of South Carolina politics, Thurmond -- a bachelor -- portrayed himself
as a virile lady's man. Whether caught lounging on Myrtle Beach with two comely
companions, or bestowing a kiss on a local festival queen, the bachelor governor
never shied away from photo opportunities that illustrated his masculinity.
Thurmond's reputation as a ladies' man was widespread. Congressman William Jennings
Bryan Dorn of Greenwood warned his sister about taking a job in the governor's
office. "[U]se your own judgment," Dorn advised. "Personally,
I had rather you would stay out of Strom Thurmond's office, for your own good
if for no other reason. His reputation and fastness concerning women is nation-wide...."

Thurmond's bachelor days ended on November 7, 1947, when he married twenty-one-year-old
Jean Crouch of Elko, a former Azalea Festival queen and a secretary in the governors'
office. The day before their wedding, the betrothed governor, casually (albeit
curiously) decked out in white gym shorts, dark socks, and wing tip shoes, posed
in a headstand for a Life magazine photographer. The caption read: "Virile
Governor demonstrates his prowess in the mansion yard before wedding."
(Before resorting to this acrobatic feat, Thurmond had asked the photographer
whether he wanted to feel his muscles.) If some voters thought that the forty-four-year-old
Thurmond's official retirement from the dating scene signaled a major life change,
this and subsequent photo opportunities proved them wrong. Amusingly, one congressman
later recalled that "to most people, who didn't know about gym shorts,
it looked like Thurmond had pulled off his pants, left his shoes on, and then
stood on his head for the cameras."

Thurmond appealed to conservative white men
suffering from a self-diagnosed case of political impotency.

Strom Thurmond's masculine persona melded well with the Dixiecrats' political
rhetoric. Prominent conservative states' rights spokesmen used familial metaphors
and gendered scenarios to play to the deep-seated fears and paranoia of white
southerners fearful of losing political power within the national party to organized
labor and blacks. White southerners manufactured political allegories in which
they were featured as cuckolds, and they often likened their new, dependent
position in the national party to those who possessed little or no power in
society: women and children. One Mississippi Dixiecrat crafted a campaign song
to be sung to the tune of an existing song entitled "Slap Her Down Again,
Pa!" a song about wife beating. In the retooled states' rights version,
white southern Democrats assumed the role of the battered wife. Elsewhere, others
portrayed the changing relationship between southern Democrats and the national
party as a failed love affair. Thurmond's personal countenance, then, made him
a worthy leader of the battle for state's rights, a battle waged as much on
the rhetorical and cultural fields as through the ballot box. As someone who
combined a political outsider's fighting rhetoric with personal sexual potency,
Thurmond appealed to conservative white men suffering from a self-diagnosed
case of political impotency.

In addition to his personal appeal, Thurmond also brought incredible energy
to the campaign trail. He thrived on the crowds and the campaign motorcades
preceded by wailing police sirens. Dixiecrat speech writer J. Oliver Emmerich,
publisher of the McComb Enterprise-Journal noted that, in this respect, Thurmond
and his vice-presidential running mate, Governor Fielding Wright, were as different
as "daylight and dark." Whereas Thurmond "got a big kick out
of" political campaigning, Wright recoiled from the attention. Fielding
Wright abhorred campaigning, and it showed. Emmerich frequently accompanied
Wright on the campaign trail. Years later, he described a typical Wright campaign
outing to New Orleans. Emmerich recalled with bemusement how, as their train
approached the New Orleans station, Wright became nervous by the sight of the
crowd awaiting his arrival. Anxious, he quietly slipped out the back of the
train and climbed, undetected, into the back of a waiting taxi cab.

Thurmond's love of the campaign trail, the pressing crowds, and the blaring
marching bands, arose from political egocentrism rather from a desire to build
a viable and lasting political movement. Thurmond's independent political tendencies
made him a good spokesman for white southerners angry at what they saw as abuse
at the hands of the national party; these same tendencies also made him impossible
to manage as a candidate. Thurmond ran his campaign as an independent enterprise.
He frequently bi-passed the Jackson office altogether when arranging his personal
appearances and disregarded speeches written for him by public relations staff,
preferring instead to use those prepared by his own staff. Thurmond dashed from
town square to town square throughout the South, sometimes delivering as many
as five speeches a day. The Dixiecrats' campaign director remarked bitterly
that Thurmond wanted to greet voters in every little "pigtrail" in
the South.

THURMOND WASN'T THE TYPE TO SAY "NIGGER"

With his moderate record, Thurmond's nomination mitigated, or at least complicated,
outsiders' negative assessment of the southern party. In an editorial immediately
following the Birmingham convention, the New York Times said the States'
Right platform illustrated a lack of "good sense," but regarded Thurmond's
nomination as politically astute. A columnist from the New York Star
labeled Thurmond a "Dixie Paradox," who "embodies in one personality
the Old South and the New." Both New York papers were impressed by Thurmond's
record as governor: his opposition to the poll tax; his abhorrence of mob violence;
his support of a minimum wage and maximum hour law; and his support for industrialization
and for the removal of discriminatory regional freight rates.

The most colorful assessment of Thurmond's candidacy came from Baltimore editor
and critic H. L. Mencken. The curmudgeonly Mencken considered Thurmond "the
best of all the [presidential] candidates" but lamented that "all
the worst morons in the South are for him." John Ed Pearce of the Louisville,
Kentucky, Courier-Journal, however, was less enamored of the South Carolinian.
He noted that Thurmond's racism differed from the more outspoken white supremacists
in style but not in substance. "On the platform Mr. Thurmond and his fellow
travelers shout of Americanism, our way of life, the right to choose one's associates,
Communism, Reds. But they mean Nigger. Mr. Thurmond, of course, never says the
word; he's not the type."

Pearce was right: Thurmond was not the type, but many in the Alabama and Mississippi
Dixiecrat camps were, and to Thurmond, at least, the difference was important.
Thurmond constantly differentiated himself from the Mississippi and Alabama
Dixiecrats. Thurmond and his advisors clearly distinguished between their brand
of conservatism and what they referred to as "the reactionary and conservative
background" of the Alabama and Mississippi Dixiecrats. Beyond style, though,
Thurmond's pro-development philosophy and his belief that the problem of the
color line was at heart an economic problem differentiated him from the Mississippi
and Alabama Dixiecrats who were tied to traditional Black Belt and industrial
interests that did not pursue economic expansion and who were, at best, ambivalent
about racial violence.

A THIRD PARTY?

The most significant difficulty that arose between Thurmond and the other leading
Dixiecrats concerned the future of the organization. Throughout the campaign,
Thurmond avoided any hint that the political effort he was spearheading had
a longer shelf-life than the presidential election, while the Dixiecrats' main
campaign office in Jackson wanted its candidate to serve as point man for a
new political movement. The goals of the movement had metamorphosed in the course
of the campaign. In order to reclaim their former position within the national
party, the Dixiecrats hoped to capitalize on party regularity. But ironically,
in formulating their plan and in cobbling together a regional effort to block
first Truman's nomination and then his election, the Dixiecrats in effect created
something new, acquiring all the trappings of a third party. They held not one
but three regional conventions -- in Jackson in May, in Birmingham in July,
and in Houston in August -- that attracted delegates from across the Deep South.
They adopted a party name -- the States' Rights Democratic Party -- drew up
a platform, and nominated candidates. And they held a campaign separate from
the national Democratic Party. The candidates traveled about the South delivering
stump speeches to enthusiastic crowds; the party opened campaign headquarters
in every southern state, held fundraisers, printed posters and buttons, and
recruited volunteers.

Following the Birmingham convention, where Thurmond and Wright had been nominated,
the newspapers reported the birth of this new political party. Ultimately, the
Dixiecrats assumed something of a split personality. In the four states where
they had captured control of the electors, Thurmond and Wright were listed as
the Democratic Party candidates. In those states, the Dixiecrats counted on
in-grained voting habits. However, in the other southern states, the Dixiecrats
were forced to campaign as a third party and had to convince voters to vote
for the electors of the States' Rights Democratic Party. But regardless of whether
they were listed as the Democratic Party candidates or the States' Rights Democratic
Party candidates, the process of either gaining control of the states' electors
or in mounting a third party effort forced many Dixiecrats to begin to think
about themselves in a new way.

Organizers differed on whether the States' Rights Democratic Party would continue
to exist as a viable protest vehicle or separate party after the election. In
order to be taken seriously, some campaign strategists, particularly those in
Mississippi and Alabama, felt that they needed at least to appear committed
to carry on the fight after the election, to prove to voters that, as one Dixiecrat
staffer confided, "the States' Rights movement is not a flash-in-the-pan...."
Others strongly believed that the Dixiecrat campaign could serve as the foundation
for a new conservative party that would attract conservative elements from both
major parties. Among themselves, the more radical Dixiecrats acknowledged that
indeed, they were ideologically closer to the Republicans; the Dixiecrat organization
could be used to move white southerners from the Democratic party to the Republican
party. For them, the States' Rights Democratic Party, then, represented a means
to creating a more viable two-party system in the South.

Thurmond disagreed with the evolving goals of the States' Rights Democratic
Party. Ever since moving to the front of the revolt in February, Thurmond remained
convinced that the states' rights effort represented nothing more than a temporary
protest whose ultimate goal was to reassert white southerners' control of the
national Democratic Party. Thurmond had no intention in carrying the protest
beyond the election and certainly had no intention of creating a third party.
But as late summer melded into fall, and especially as the Dixiecrats mounted
third-party efforts in most of the southern states, many Dixiecrats began to
discuss the possibility of keeping their organization alive after the election.
In the weeks prior to the election, Alabama and Mississippi Dixiecrats began
laying the groundwork for a permanent organization. Many States' Righters agreed
with attorney Charles W. Collins, author of Whither Solid South and the
Dixiecrats' tactician, that Thurmond's campaign had created the basis for a
new political party. Dixiecrat leaders convened in Memphis about a week before
the election and agreed to continue the fight for "constitutional government
and individual liberty" after the election.

The disagreements over strategies and goals that had divided the States' Rights
organization during the 1948 campaign spilled over into the post-election era
and multiplied exponentially. Minimum cohesion had been achieved during the
presidential campaign primarily because all factions were dedicated ultimately
to securing votes for Thurmond. With that focus gone, the organization's tenuous
unity began to crumble altogether. States' Rights leaders struggled to give
their organization post-election life. The group voted to create a non-profit
States' Rights Institute in Washington with the vague mission of "spreading"
states' rights principles and focused their energies on defeating the civil
rights legislation pending in Congress. In May 1949, the Dixiecrats held their
second annual convention. They officially changed their name to the National
States Rights Democratic Committee and declared that although it was not a political
party, it hoped to have some impact in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections.

EYE ON THE SENATE

Strom Thurmond moved quickly to separate himself from the Dixiecrats after November
1948. Although he vowed publicly to continue to fight for states' rights principles,
he proved unwilling to continue any close affiliation with the movement he had
led only a few months previous. Indeed, Thurmond's actions in 1949 and 1950
confirmed the suspicions of many that his run for the presidency was as much
about ego and publicity as principle. But while he kept the Dixiecrats at arms'
length, he never made the break complete and he never publicly criticized the
organization. He sent mixed messages to his former supporters. Shortly after
the election, Thurmond assured one leader of the Alabama states' rights forces
that he supported the creation of a permanent States' Rights organization to
fight all civil rights legislation and promised his active support. To others,
he refused to commit to any post-election activity and instead counseled patience.

Essentially, Thurmond had his eye on the 1950 Democratic primary race for the
U.S. Senate; he and his advisors feared that if he appeared to be closely aligned
with the states' rights organization, too many South Carolina voters might also
affiliate themselves with the group and "might not feel qualified to enroll
and vote in the [1950] Democratic primary." But they also did not want
Thurmond to make any public disavowals of the organization, since many in South
Carolina had supported his candidacy. Privately, he and his advisors criticized
the activities of the states' rights organization, ridiculing many of the proposals
of the states' rights group as "screwy." They feared that any close
association with the National States' Rights organization might tarnish Thurmond's
reputation. Thurmond kept his distance. With Thurmond effectively gone and with
no one to take his place at the head of the group, the organization quietly
folded.

Even though Thurmond had abandoned the Dixiecrats almost as the votes were
being counted, he never again fit completely comfortably within the national
Democratic Party. Along with many other voters in the Deep South, for the next
twenty years he remained firmly committed to a period of flux in presidential
elections, as national political allegiances bounced back and forth among Democratic,
Republican, and Independent candidates. If, as historians have noted, the Dixiecrats
marked the beginnings of the two-party South, their campaign likewise illustrated
how messy and protracted the process was bound to be. Abandoning traditional
voting habits and forming new alliances began at the edges of politics, among
the most disaffected, and in the elections that least threatened local power.
Indeed, if the man who has come to personify political change in the South had
conflicting emotions about abandoning traditional allegiances, how must the
average white voter have felt?

More Comments:

carol ashton satterfield -
12/28/2010

If Strom Thurmond hadn't been afraid of the reality of the Dixiecrat Party and hadn't changed the name, the South would be much different now. I would like to see a strong leader to step up to take the South to a new level in the direction the Dixiecrats were headed and Thurmond was afraid to go. State's Rights and common sense is needed now to take control of the crazy way things have gone in the past. We need a strong leader who can bring sanity and control to this hurdling mass of death America has become. Is there anybody out there?

J. Rolling -
12/17/2003

I am amazed at people's reaction to this revelation. Blacks and white Southerns have known for years that this stuff happened ALL the time. Whites just always denied it. Mixing of the races really did not apply to white men and Black women-just WHITE WOMEN and BLACK MEN. In the past, nine out of ten times when the Klan paid Black people a visit the raping of Black females was part of the abuse or terrorizing of Blacks. I am fifty years old and cannot count the number of times I have heard elderly people speak about how "that man ruined that child" or "those men ruined that girl." Of course they were referring to the rape of a child or young girl. For some reason white men felt black females were fair game no matter their age. I remember a time when I was thirteen that my grandfather had to warn a white storeowner to inform his son that even though other Black people were afraid of whites,he himself was not. He told the man to have his son come and take a "real good look at this little black girl so the next time he chases a little girl with no good on his mind he will make sure it's not this one." The storekeeper was then informed that even though all whites saw when they looked at me was a "little colored girl with no value" my grandparents loved me and I was worth more to them than their life or gold. It was made plain to the man that if his son ever approached me again he would be killed and if the father had any objections he could die also. I was NEVER approached by the boy again-as a matter of fact the boy avoided me at all cost. However,he did rape several other Black girls over the years. So, this type of stuff went on for years. I attended school with a girl who had come to Texas to live with an aunt because her father's wife had spotted her and was livid because the child resembled the man. The wife was so angry that she informed the girl's mother that unless she got rid of the child the entire family would be killed. The girl was sent away so the white woman would not have acknowledge the husband's behavior. By the way,the girl's mother was raped by the man on more than one occassion-if she did refused the man she would have been harmed. If she had not submitted she was damned so she submitted and was still damned! And white people have the nerve to claim they don't understand why Blacks are so angy about the treatment of our ancestors by their ancestors. ITs not just the slavery but the things that went along with it.

NYGuy -
6/30/2003

DC

“But that does not give him a pass for his ardent segregationism, for his attempt to perpetuate the bigotry that kept black southerners as worse than second class citizens, for his willingness to use his bully pulpit to subvert the very freedoms he purported to fight for in the war.

PC

I wrote: “Of course in the world of revisionist history one simply has to concentrate on one aspect of a man's life to define his character.”

DC it seems you make my point. A man lives for 100 years and the historical perspective as given by PhD. historians is what you conclude.

You also show the validity of the Babe Ruth story since there too they concentrate only on the negatives.

DC

“What on earth do you mean, a more "balanced" article? One of the things that historians do is to make historical judgments. Kari Fredrickson is a first-rate historian, and her work on Thurmond an the Dixiecrats reveals her to be the foremost expert on this topic”.

PAC

A person of such historical importance deserves a more balanced description of his life than he got in this supposedly historical review of the man. Let me see, 4 years out of 100. I think that might be 4% of his life. What a wonderful analysis or remembrance or perspective on history.

But for DC the historian, the other parts of Thurmond's life were not important. Seems Thurmond never changed, and was as big a segregationist when he died, as he was in 1946. Further he never did anything good in his life again after 1950.

DC

Finally, how anyone can question publishing an article by someone as respected as Fredrickson in the wake of Thurmond's death is beyond me.

PAC

Slight correction this was a “republishing of an old article” at the time of Thurmond’s death in History News Network. You again make my point, how could the editors of HNN be so calloused and partisan that they could not follow the lead of reputable reporters in the media who saw fit to review Thurmond’s life in a fair and professional manner. Or if they could not do that in good conscience, they should have done nothing.

Finally, while I can see how you think that I am criticizing Kari Frederickson, the fact is she is relatively unimportant in my upset with HNN. If they wanted to do a news article on Thurmond at the time of his death they should have done a respectable, professional article on the man’s full 100 years or just should have done nothing. In that sense the republication of Kari Frederickson, with HNN’s headline is a reflection on their decency, professionalism and character and not on the author.

As for me I don't have a dog in this fight. I just think this was a wonderful opportunity to provide more information on the oldest Senator to hold office, and give more details on his life, both good and bad.

AC/DC -
6/29/2003

sounds like a fun place

NYGuy -
6/29/2003

Josh,

I don't know where you are coming from, but if there is anything that if factually incorrect please point it out. He never played against a team with either minorities or with women. What kind of a human being is that? Particularly in today's politically correct times.

josh -
6/29/2003

He was a meat-eating, beer-drinking, coin-flipping die-tosser, to a great degree, and yet, not so much that he was permanently barred from hitting a fast, leather-bound ball with a stick, throwing, nor running a 100+ yards.

I once heard of a guy who could make a car go around a track, more than 100+ times, faster than any other man, but he was killed at a shootout at the Global Chess Tournament, so I just call him In'evven.

We also like Babe Ruth because he didn't seem to be out to get anything except the predictable stuff, more meat, more beer, and more coins to flip.

Kinda like Frank Sinatra, but not like President Ronald Reagan.

Cuz I swear, and I may be wrong here, but Brutus said he was ambitious, and Brutus was not an honorable man, nor was the Triumvirate a Republic.

What's an edile?

Derek Catsam -
6/29/2003

What on earth do you mean, a more "balanced" article? One of the things that historians do is to make historical judgments. Kari Fredrickson is a first-rate historian, and her work on Thurmond an the Dixiecrats reveals her to be the foremost expert on this topic. I have no idea what you are talking about when you mention "revisionist" history. This piece is not a work of revisionism -- if it is, what, pray tell, is the scholarly trend which she is revising? (And what do Clinton, or Babe Ruth, for that matter, have to do with anything? And by the way -- who seriously is advocating keeping Babe Ruth out of the Hall of Fame -- you've pulled this chimera out a few times, and it is clear that you are telling twice told tales. Please give names, or else stop pulling this irrelevant story out like a child with a new toy, because you've tried to apply this silly analogy to four or five different themes now.)
Thurmond did good and noble things in going off to fight in WWII when he was old enough not to have had to. But that does not give him a pass for his ardent segregationism, for his attempt to perpetuate the bigotry that kept black southerners as worse than second class citizens, for his willingness to use his bully pulpit to subvert the very freedoms he purported to fight for in the war. The fact that he fought in the war, in short, is utterly irrelevent when assessing his career as South Carolina Governor and then Senator.
Finally, how anyone can question publishing an article by someone as respected as Fredrickson in the wake of Thurmond's death is beyond me. NYGuy -- your ignorance of both history and historiography could not be more clear. You have no idea what you are talking about, which does not seem to stop you from spewing your vitriol, half-baked opinions and poorly written meanderings all over HNN.

NYGuy -
6/29/2003

DS

The hostility in your comment is unwarranted. I read this piece when it was originally published and found it very informative and revealing.

PAC

First, HNN stands for “History”, “News”, and “Network”.

As for news you said you already read the article when it was published six months ago, so we are not dealing with “News”. Why was it published again, since it originally was merely a partisan attempt to demonize Trott and the Republicans back then? This material was well discussed on HNN in the past and is merely a rehash.

Nothing-newsworthy here. Oh you mean that HNN is not a classy website, and their editors have no dignity so this is the “impartial way of describing the life of a major historical figure.” You will get no disagreement from me. So much for the “History” in HNN

DG

They had a piece in the can and at the ready and published. It is much more balanced than most of the stuff out there that portrays Thurmond as the devil incarnate. It is clearly not an obituary, which is what you seem to be asking for.

PAC

I have worked on a weekly and the editors had three choices:

1. If they wanted they could have ignored Thurman’s death and said nothing. This would at least give them some creditability and preserved some sense of dignity for the editors. This was not a multi-million dollar effort that they couldn’t change. It was a simple cut and paste job by a $17/hour hack.
2. The editors could have published another article they should have had, “in the can” for next week. You are not suggesting that this is the article they always planned to publish on Thurmon’s death. Real sick thought.
3. They could have published an obituary. The content should parallel the obituaries present by reputable TV, Radio, Newspaper and other decent media on this impportant historical figure.

I never said I wanted then to publish an obituary if there politics didn’t want too. But, if they wanted to deal with the death of an important individual in history, they should act like decent human beings, and historians and do it as professionals.

As for Babe Ruth you probably did not read this post on HNN:

Babe Ruth struck out 2026 times. Most historians did not focus on this point but with the new revisionist history being put forward, historians and now taken a new look at someone who has been looked upon as a hero. .

There is a new revisionist history book about the "Babe", titled, "Babe Ruth was a loser." The author focuses on his number of strikeouts and concludes that the "Babe" was not really a good player and has no place in the Hall of Fame.

The author points out the many times when the babe had men on base and he struck out. He even struck out with no men on base, one man on base and two men on base. He never struck out with women on base because they were not permitted to play at time. Still the Babe was a chauvanist and never fought for women's rights. He was also a racist who never played against teams that had non-whites on it. Many other examples are given to show the "Babe" was self centered and only played to make money and get rich, for his own pleasure and amusement and really if ever did anything to improve the plight of the poor and downtrodden. He also cheated the management and bosses of the Yankees with all his strikeouts.

The fans in the stands were cheated when this happened, as well as the man in street who worshipped the Babe. These strike outs happened thousands of times and the Babe did nothing about them, but continued on with his sloppy way.

This book is patterned on the philosophy of Zinn's portrayal of America.

No wonder we can't be proud, particularly when we can't even have a hero in baseball.

DS

I want to ask why you think Hank Aaron got affirmative action but failed to mention Mark McGwire and who in the world is asking for Babe Ruth to be thrown out of the hall of fame?

NYGuy

Most baseball experts say that Hank Aaron had the advantage of a livelier baseball. And many say that he had an advantage that Babe Ruth did not have. Simple.

At a minimum you should at least thank Thurmon for helping you to remain free and recognize the respect Thurmon got from our integrated military, unless of course you consider Colin Powell an Uncle Tom:

“Secretary of the Air Force Dr. James G. Roche (right) and others watch with U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (in wheelchair) as the 100th C-17 Globemaster III to roll of the assembly line is christened the "Spirit of Strom Thurmond" during a ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Dec. 12. The dedication commemorated the senator's 100th birthday. Thurmond, an Army combat veteran of World War II, has been a U.S. senator for 48 years and is a member of the Senate Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs committees. The "Spirit of Strom Thurmond" is assigned to the 437th Airlift Wing at Charleston Air Force Base in Thurmond's home state of South Carolina. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Jim Varhegyi) “

Don't remember any minority protests at this occassion. But then we have to consider that the minorities don't protest former KKK members in the Senate since they are often the spokesmen for the Democratic party, as we heard recently as Tom and Nancy hide under the covers.

josh -
6/29/2003

"who in the world is asking for Babe Ruth to be thrown out of the hall of fame?"

The ICC.

No, not the International Criminal Court.

The International Communist Conspiracy.

They noticed that, in their entire collection, they didn't have any Babe Ruth cards, so they are trying to drive down the price, simply out of spite over the whole "We became a Republic, and it's not working that great at all, so, um, why did we do this again, so we could let the US invade Iraq and hand itself billions in contracts for Iraq's oil????"

jsn -
6/29/2003

30K-100K genes.

6 are for skin color

We all have all six, just different amounts of "expression."

The little pockets of fat, around the lips, nose and eyes; are similarly trivial.

For a Republic to have imposed reality based on a Lie, for anyone to have, was incorrect. That said, if a State does not have the right to secede, is this a Union, or a Prison?

And when it is finally proved to you that Earthlings are Earthlings, regardless of Money, Lineage, Strength or Knowledge, then we can probably start getting somewhere good.

Which will, sadly, by that point, seem only a footstep away, and so the most boring thing on Earth.

As for Strom, well, I don't think he ever really changed his mind about "race," but he didn't let that stop him.

David Salmanson -
6/28/2003

NY Guy,
The hostility in your comment is unwarranted. I read this piece when it was originally published and found it very informative and revealing. I do not see it as overly hostile to Thurmond. I understand HNN's desire to republish in the current context. They had a piece in the can and at the ready and published. It is much more balanced than most of the stuff out there that portrays Thurmond as the devil incarnate. It is clearly not an obituary, which is what you seem to be asking for.
I want to ask why you think Hank Aaron got affirmitive action but failed to mention Mark McGwire and who in the world is asking for Babe Ruth to be thrown out of the hall of fame?

NYGuy -
6/28/2003

The editorial choice for this week is a proper one, but the editorial comments by the editors is not.

Assuming some of the Editors on the staff are historians and not Political Scientist, or just plain hacks, one would have hoped they would have chosen a more balanced article on Strom and a more balanced headline.

Of course in the world of revisionist history one simply has to concentrate on one aspect of a man's life to define his character.

That is why the cry of "the opposition hates Clinton is baeless." Applying the same standards used by revisionist for Strom, we it becomes obvious that Mr. Clinton's sexual dalliances hurt the american people and his presidency. As a revisionist, this is what he should be remembered for. Looking at other aspects of his life or presidency is meaningless for a PhD. Historian. Using similar analysis we could conclude that Kennedy, Washington, Jefferson, Cleveland, Grant, Clinton and many other Presidents failed to do anything worthwhile in their life.

This is another example of the Babe Ruth story, he struck out 2,026 time in his life. Because of this negative statistic, revisionist regard him as a failure and are seeking to remove him from the Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, both Hank Aaron and Sosa benefited from "affirmative action", i.e. the hyped up ball, but the revisionist don't think it matters since one has to apply political condiderations to one's creative, or is it critical thinking.

One has to question not only HNN's decision to publish an article that is 6 months old, but also it editorial worthyness as publing a site for serious scolars. Simple facts like Strom being the only man who was elected to congress by a write in vote, served the longest and was the oldest member of congress, was a highly decorated war veteran who, volunteered, was with the famous 82nd Airborne at the Normandy landing , later fought in the pacific and has 5 battle stars. The first senator to hire minorities, etc.

Of couse those with PhD's do not consider these factors since in revisionist history you only have to play "gotcha". It is easier, takes no thought process and produces a lot of meaningless verbiage.

Brillant HNN

Observer -
6/28/2003

I'm sure Strom is being greeted with open arms in Sheol, after a lifetime of hate-mongering, racism, womanizing and working against the interests of common Americans.

Mixed Man` -
6/28/2003

The old south had a rule for these affairs; if you had a single drop of black blood in you, you're black.

Ed Schmitt -
12/19/2002

I didn't think my point was unclear, so I'll try restating it,though I fear this strays from the historical specifics of Strom Thurmond. If "Old Strom" fathered a child with an African-American woman, would not that child be biracial (or multiracial)? The idea that any child or any American citizen with African-American heritage is instantly considered "black" above and beyond their other ethnicities (see Tiger Woods) points out the absurd tendency in American culture - rooted in slavery and the racial definitions of the 19th century and earlier - to classify individuals as black even if that is a small part of their ethnic makeup. My only point was that the historical weight of this affects us as a nation still. Aren't we all multiethnic? Race is an artificial category based on the easiest way to categorize individuals - skin color. I did not mean my comment to be about sensitivity training, so that is why I began it the way I did, and Mr. Kellum, you're welcome for the ball I put on the tee for your one-liner.

Tom Kellum -
12/18/2002

Put the nightstick down, nice and easy, Mr. Schmitt.

You asked how Senator Thurmond could have fathered a "black" daughter. My guess is: the old-fashioned way.

Of course, if you are implying that Senator Thurmond's racial category may not be "pure" --- then that might have something to do with her color...but how he fathered her probably doesn't have anything to do with her color. Just a guess.

Ed Schmitt -
12/18/2002

This comment is not intended to be the nightstick of the PC police across Mr. Kellum's knuckles, but rather an observation. His response to Ms. Frederickson's article in itself reveals the persistence of racial myths in the United States and the minefield Senator Lott stepped into with his comments. If Senator Thurmond, who is by all appearances "white" (racial categories in themselves contain a large measure of absurdity), how could he have fathered a "black" daughter? The answer, it seems to me, is the lingering historical influence of 19th century legal definitions of Americans with 1/8 African-American heritage as "black."

Tom Kellum -
12/18/2002

Maybe the best example to illustrate Senator Thurmnond's mixed record is the black daughter he fathered (out of wedlock)...as reported in the biography of him titled "Ole Strom."